The Poetics of a Plague, A Haiku Diary The 2020-2021 COVID-19 Pandemic

no pot holders, felt
hats, quilt rugs or sourdough
to show, and no
 
grand projects done, just
these humble haikus that tell
the tale of how we
 
lived through this virus
its existential despair
counting off the days.
 
During the pandemic, Melbourne became the most locked down city in the world, restricting five million people largely to the confines of their homes for months on end. Poet and mental health advocate Sandy Jeffs was one of them.
 
This diary, written in haiku form, takes the reader through the daily grind of lockdown, with Sandy’s humorous and sharp insights on local and national politics, as well as international events like the US election, all written from her study, aka haiku central.
 
On the coronacoaster with Sandy, she takes us from humour to despair, counting syllables and case numbers, marking birthdays in lockdown, as sewing machines come into demand, the Arts industry goes into freefall, and Melbourne experiences a black summer followed by the pandemic, a super storm and an earthquake. Her poems mark the changing moods.
 

Sandy Jeffs OAM is a prize-winning poet and the author of 8 collections including the bestselling collection, Poems from the Madhouse, Blood Relations The Wings of Angels: A Memoir of Madness and The Mad Poet’s Tea Party. Her non-fiction includes prize-winning books the memoir, Flying with Paper Wings and Out of the Madhouse (with Margaret Leggatt).